while today

The Milestone of Graduation

May 18, 2012

Graduation is an important milestone in one’s life. For a high school graduate, it means you have made it from kindergarten through twelfth grade. A lot of time has passed in that journey toward adulthood. That time passed slowly for you, but for your parents, the time has flown by quickly. They are extremely proud of you, but they are also feeling a bit nostalgic as they consider the changes that are ahead.

Graduation is a new beginning. As someone has quipped, they call them commencement ceremonies for a reason: you are about to commence to the next stage of your life. The new beginning may lead to a job, a technical school, college, or the military. Graduation represents the passing of something accomplished, so that something new may begin.

A world of opportunities exist even in a tough economic climate. Choose your job path carefully. As it is frequently said, if you find something that you really like to do, you will never work a day in your life. By never work, the saying means that it won’t seem like drudgery. You will look forward to your work. Time will pass quickly. I’ll add one caution. I suspect that in every job there is some drudgery. It is difficult to get away from the curse of Genesis 3 completely. But people who enjoy what they do are blessed.

This is the time when you are making those important decisions about what you will do in life. Ecclesiastes advises:

Rejoice, young man, while you are young, and let your heart cheer you in the days of your youth. Follow the impulses of your heart and the desires of your eyes, but know that God will judge your motives and actions. Ecclesiastes 11:9, NET

As long as it is within the will of God, youth is the time to follow your dreams. Youth is the time of great potential. Enjoy it, but choose wisely.

Graduation is a time of spiritual testing. Make certain that God and His will are involved in the decisions you make. Leaving home will also make it necessary for your faith to become your own and not just that of your parents. You may find yourself having to wake up and go to church on a Sunday morning on your own. Mom or Dad won’t be there to get you up. Stepping out into a wider world will also mean facing greater temptations and challenges to your faith. Keeping spiritual matters a priority will help you through the temptations and challenges. If you keep God first, it can lead to the strengthening and maturing of your faith.

Congratulations on the milestone of graduation!

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Posted by Russell Holden

Not Mass Produced

May 11, 2012

Netflix currently has the series, How It’s Made. I’m fascinated with the automation that goes into everyday products. One episode showed a factory producing copy paper. I tend to feel like I’m all thumbs unwrapping a ream of paper and placing it in the photocopier, but a mechanized factory produces 55,000 sheets of paper a minute, and it can wrap a ream of paper in the blink of an eye. Another episode showed a machine that fabricates adhesive bandages. It produced 300 to 1500 bandages a minute depending on size.

Since the industrial revolution, a few have pondered whether children could be raised that way. Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World imagined a hatchery for children. Children were designed and conditioned to fulfill their various social stations. No need for the messiness of parents. The upper class alphas could then be free to consume (that’s what consumer societies need after all) and to experience pleasure.

The real world has produced more modest attempts of raising children in mass. The Soviet Union experimented on the family with child care centers. It attempted to put more of the child raising under the control of the state. From a non-Marxist point a view, feminism also desired the emancipation of women from the burden of child rearing. They believed that collective child care was inevitable, but their most illusive goal was freedom from the pre-school years.

Yet, maternal and parenting instincts are strong, and some of the attempts to change family life have fortunately been resisted. The Soviet Union had to reverse its course in its attempt to radically change the family. Plus, all this experimenting has taught us something. Child raising does not seem to be an activity that can be successfully industrialized. Children succeed at certain developmental tasks with parents that are not met with even the best child care.

Your mother gave birth to you. She changed your diapers. She talked to you and read stories to you. She taught you right from wrong. In fact, your moral sense was developed by the age of nine. She taught you how to pray your first child-like prayers. She guided you in learning how to share your toys, resolve your conflicts, and pick up after yourself. You learned to brush your teeth, take a bath, and say thank you and please.

She was there when you were frightened, and she protected you from dangers even the ones for which you were totally unaware. She put Band-Aids on your skinned knee and wiped away your tears. It was a labor intensive task, yet a labor of love. You were not massed produced.

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Posted by Russell Holden

The God Who Works in You

May 4, 2012

We need all the parts of Paul’s statement in Philippians 2:12-13.

Therefore, my beloved, as you have always obeyed, so now, not only as in my presence but much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure. (Philippians 2:12–13, ESV)

Certainly, Paul is encouraging us to a life of obedience, individual responsibility, and perseverance. But we need to notice more than the phrase: work out your own salvation.

Paul wants us to live a life of reverence. Interestingly enough, Paul emphasizes “with fear and trembling” by his word order. Literally in Greek, the phrase would be: with fear and trembling your own salvation work out. That provides a context for our obedience. We are in a relationship with a mighty God.

Certainly a terror that would cause us to freeze or flee would be counter-productive. But the fear or reverence that Paul wants us to have should cause us to be humble and receptive. “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge; fools despise wisdom and instruction” (Proverbs 1:7, ESV). “But this is the one to whom I will look: he who is humble and contrite in spirit and trembles at my word” (Isaiah 66:2b, ESV).

Paul wants us to live a life of power. That is why reverence is so important. We are living in a relationship with God — a life of dependence. Paul explains that in this working out of our own salvation that God is involved: “for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure” (Philippians 2:13, ESV). My experience in Christian living would suggest that God’s power doesn’t help us without our effort and cooperation. I think that is why there is the balance that exists in this passage. But neither should we think that the walk of faith is unaided and dependent only on our own resources.

Paul is clear that he has a source of strength that is beyond himself: “I can do all things through him who strengthens me” (Philippians 4:13, ESV). I suspect we discover God’s power in our lives when we admit our own weaknesses in prayer. I suspect we find God’s help when we step out in faith despite our own reservations.

Paul clearly wants us to understand our part and God’s part in daily Christian living. Work out your own salvation. But remember we do this in fear and trembling, and that God is at work in us to will and to work for his good pleasure.

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Posted by Russell Holden

Work Out Your Own Salvation

April 27, 2012

Paul’s statement in Philippians 2:12-13 is sometimes regarded as a difficult passage. People are troubled by the phrase, work out. Doesn’t Paul say we can’t be saved by works of the law (Romans 3:20) or that the one who works, his wages are counted as his due rather than as a gift (Romans 4:4)? The answer is yes, but Paul can use the word, work, in more than one way. It can mean merit, and Paul clearly teaches we can’t merit or earn our salvation (Ephesians 2:8-9) . But it can also be a way of talking about deeds of obedience (Ephesians 2:10). Faith clearly leads to obedience (Romans 1:5), so Christians are created for good works. What does Paul want us to learn from this statement?

Paul wants us to lead a life of obedience (work out) because we are Christians. Obedience is our God-given purpose (see Philippians 1:9-11, 1:27). We were always meant to let God be Lord in our lives. We were always meant to obey. By the way, obedience isn’t tested when what God wants and what we want are the same. Obedience is true obedience when we are willing to say with Jesus, not my will but yours be done. Obedience is also tested by the people around us. Obedience shouldn’t depend on our human audience. Paul indicates that when he says “in my presence, but much more in my absence.”

Paul wants us to accept and live a life of individual responsibility — “work out your own salvation.” Paul is reminding them of their individual responsibility to continue in the path to salvation. There are things others can’t do for you. I can’t build your character for you. I can’t make your moral choices for you. Yes, each of us can receive guidance, but even that is something we must choose to accept or reject.

Paul wants us to live a life of perseverance (work out your own salvation). Louw and Nida give this insight into the word: “to do something with success and/or thoroughness.” A.T. Robertson in his, Word Pictures in the New Testament, notes for this passage to “work on to the finish.” We see this even in Paul’s example:

Not that I have already obtained this or am already perfect, but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own. (Philippians 3:12, ESV)

Paul’s statement is consistent with grace. Work out has to do with the obedience which is our purpose. Because of our status as Christians, Paul wants us to live lives of obedience, responsibility, and perseverance.

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Posted by Russell Holden

The True Audience

April 20, 2012

We live in the age of entertainment. Most of us spend hours every week being in the audience of some performance via television, and that experience may distort our view of worship. Søren Kierkegaard noted the problem in the nineteenth century. His parable is worth considering.

It is so on the stage, as you know well enough, that someone sits and prompts by whispers; [he is hidden;] he is the inconspicuous one; he is and wishes to be overlooked. But then there is another, he strides out prominently, he draws every eye to himself. For that reason he has been given his name, that is: actor. He impersonates a distinct individual. In the skillful sense of this illusionary art, each word becomes true when embodied in him, true through him—and yet he is told what he shall say by the hidden one that sits and whispers. No one is so foolish as to regard the prompter as more important than the actor. 

Now forget this light talk about art. Alas, in regard to things spiritual, the foolishness of many is this, that they in the secular sense look upon the speaker as an actor, and the listeners as theatergoers who are to pass judgment upon the artist. But the speaker is not the actor—not in the remotest sense. No, the speaker is the prompter. There are no mere theatergoers present, for each listener will be looking into his own heart. The stage is eternity, and the listener, if he is the true listener (and if he is not, he is at fault) stands before God during the talk. The prompter whispers to the actor what he is to say, but the actor’s repetition of it is the main concern—is the solemn charm of the art. The speaker whispers the word to the listeners. But the main concern is earnestness: that the listeners by themselves, with themselves, and to themselves, in the silence before God, may speak with the help of this address. 

The address is not given for the speaker’s sake, in order that men may praise or blame him. The listener’s repetition of it is what is aimed at. If the speaker has the responsibility for what he whispers, then the listener has an equally great responsibility not to fail short in his task. In the theater, the play is staged before an audience who are called theatergoers; but at the devotional address, God himself is present. In the most earnest sense, God is the critical theatergoer, who looks on to see how the lines are spoken and how they are listened to: hence here the customary audience is wanting. The speaker is then the prompter, and the listener stands openly before God. The listener … is the actor, who in all truth acts before God.*

The leaders of worship are prompters. Those in the assembly are the actors on the stage of life and eternity prompted by those who “whisper” the word, and God is the true audience.

*Thomas C. Oden, editor. The Parables of Kierkegaard, pp. 89-90.

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Posted by Russell Holden

Avoiding “Tiny Terror”

April 13, 2012

I was in a doctor’s waiting room when I met “Tiny Terror” and his mom. Tiny Terror was bouncing off the walls, and Mom seemed to have no way to control him. I thought the older couple sitting in the room was his grandparents. After all, Tiny Terror was on the floor in between the older gentleman’s legs banging a toy against the wall. Finally, Mom said that Tiny Terror was going to “time out.” It did not seem that Tiny Terror considered that an unpleasant prospect. When they had left the room, I learned that the people I assumed as “Grandparents” were just perturbed victims of Tiny Terror. The older gentleman commented aloud, “That boy is out of control and is the boss of his mother.”

How do we avoid raising a Tiny Terror? We have to realize that we are in a struggle to decide who is boss. The parent who can give consistent and firm discipline can win that battle. Consistency of consequences for unwanted behaviors is important because children will attempt to wear us down in this battle over wills. Punishment needs to “unpleasant” in order to be a deterrent (cf. Hebrews 12:11). Timeout can be unpleasant if done correctly, but in Tiny Terror’s case timeout was not dreaded.

I still think there is a place for spanking, and by the way, so does scripture (Proverbs13:24, 22:15, 23:13-14, 29:15). Dr. James Dobson gives a number of good guidelines in his books. He suggests mild spankings could occur beginning at about 15 months. Spankings should be infrequent and reserved for defiance. Corporal punishment might continue to ages 9 to 12, but again are reserved for rebellion. I realize that there have been negative studies of spanking. However, I don’t believe researchers have carefully distinguished between the controlled corporal punishment as outlined by Dobson and the swats done out of anger and frustration. I too deplore the latter and think they fail as effect discipline.

Other punishments must also be a part of the parent’s tool kit. They will include timeout, loss of privileges, and work, although these must be tailored to the child’s age and abilities. Punishment shouldn’t be done out of anger. It should include talking about why the child is being corrected and should also include the expression of the parent’s love for the child. Discipline is not just about negative behavior. Discipline also includes reward and praise for appropriate behavior.

Parents should be clear about boundaries for their children. It is natural for children to test the boundaries set by parents, which is why consistency is important. Don’t make threats that you are not going to carry through on. Idle threats only allow the child to push your buttons and the edges of the boundaries you’ve set. If we are consistent, we won’t have to use our anger as the means of control. We can gain compliance before it reaches the anger level. Also be careful about promises. Don’t make promises that you don’t intend to keep.

Raising children also includes a great deal of instruction. We are instilling values and morals. “Train up a child in the way he should go, Even when he is old he will not depart from it” (Proverbs 22:6, NASB). We should be talking about spiritual things and values in our daily lives (see Deuteronomy 4:9, 6:7, Psalm 78:4-7, and Ephesians 6:1-4).

Few parents would want to claim perfection in child rearing. We all make mistakes, but there are common sense ways of being in control—ways to avoid “Tiny Terror.”

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Posted by Russell Holden

The Meaning of Jesus’ Resurrection

April 6, 2012

How can we express what the resurrection means?

It means vindication. Jesus really is the Messiah, the Anointed One, who fulfills the promise made to David. The chief priests had rejected him. The crowds had cried, “Crucify him!” Peter preached that the resurrection gives us the certainly “that God has made him both Lord and Christ” (Acts 2:36).

It means forgiveness. The wages of sin is death. God warns against eating of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, “for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die” (Genesis 2:17, ESV). The sacrificial system of the Law of Moses was a pointer to what God would some day do on the cross. Life was in the blood. A life was accepted in exchange for the life of a sinner. “He (that is God) made him who did not know sin a sin offering in our behalf, in order that we may become the righteousness of God in him” (2 Corinthians 5:21).

It means reconciliation. Adam and Eve had walked with God in a way that it is difficult for us to imagine. Our only hint is in Genesis 3 when they heard the sound of God walking in the garden, and they knew what the sound meant, so they hid themselves because of their sin. Paradise was lost. Adam and Eve were cast out of the garden. Yet, God has sought to reconcile the world to himself. Because of Jesus’ death, burial and resurrection, we can approach the throne of grace with confidence. As Christians, we become a temple of the Holy Spirit. We look forward to once more having access to the Tree of Life and walking in God’s glorious presence.

It means transformation. Yes, I need to be forgiven of my sin, but I also need a moral makeover. I need to become a better person. Following Jesus and putting to death the deeds of the body by the Spirit is the process of that moral transformation. God’s desire is that we be conformed to the image of his Son (Romans 8:29).

It means eternal life. Jesus is the resurrection and the life. Jesus is the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep. Jesus’ resurrection from the dead anticipates and is the basis of the resurrection at his coming. Death has been conquered. Yes, we may still have to experience physical death, but those who are in Jesus have life and hope of eternal life. “Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life. He does not come into judgment, but has passed from death to life” (John 5:24, ESV). “And this is the testimony, that God gave us eternal life, and this life is in his Son” (1 John 5:11, ESV).

How wonderful and marvelous — He is risen!

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Posted by Russell Holden

Beware of Sure Things

March 30, 2012

While my daily Bible readings were in Proverbs, our local television news did a story on an Internet scam. This Internet company claimed to be located in Grand Rapids, which is why our investigative reporter worked the story. The company supposedly made loans.

A victim in the report told her story. She had applied for a loan of $10,000 but was told to send $1000 to guarantee the loan. This should have been the first clue that something was wrong. Now the $1000 is gone, there is no loan, and the Grand Rapids address is phony. But what made me think of Proverbs was the comment this lady made.

My friend Rose that loaned me the thousand dollars. That was her rent money and now she’s on the verge of being kicked out of her home because we didn’t get the loan.

Proverbs has many warnings about “putting up security” or “making a pledge” for someone else. The longest of the passages is in Proverbs 6:1-5. It deals with the case when you have put up security for your neighbor. It advises “to plead urgently with your neighbor” and “save yourself” like a gazelle from the hunter or a bird from the fowler. Proverbs 17:18 is a good example of the warnings.

One who lacks sense gives a pledge and puts up security in the presence of his neighbor. Proverbs 17:18, ESV

Many years ago, I had a man who called the church building. He asked me to bail out his son from the county jail. The man was out of state. The bond was $2000. I didn’t know either of them. At the time, I probably didn’t have the ten percent for the bond available in the family budget, and I certainly couldn’t have afforded to lose $2000 if the son skipped on the bail. I offered to visit the man’s son in jail and help him get in contact with a local bail bondsman, so that he could bail out his son, but I made it clear that I could not personally bail out his son. He didn’t want the help I was willing to offer, which is telling. It is not unkind to say no to what you cannot afford.

That, after all, is the point of Proverbs. It is cautioning us against putting up security, if we think we will never be asked to pay it, because we are legally and morally on the hook for the loss. If you can afford the loss and are willing to put up security that may be a different matter. You must count the cost and be able to afford the loss.

The Rose of this story no doubt was told that this was a sure thing. Her money would be back before her rent was due. Beware of sure things.

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Posted by Russell Holden

Correcting the Divorce Rate

March 23, 2012

I have to admit that I’ve said it. After all, I had read it in some reliable sources. What is this erroneous statement? “Christians divorce at about the same rate as the world.”

Now that doesn’t mean the numbers are good, but a couple of studies suggest that the oft repeated statement that divorce rates for Christians are the same as for outsiders is wrong. Professor Bradley Wright of the University of Connecticut found that 60% had been divorced in the group that rarely attended church versus 38% had been divorced among those that regularly went to church. W. Bradford Wilcox of the University of Virginia found that active conservative Protestants were 35% less likely to divorce than those with no church affiliation and nominally attending conservative Protestants are 20% less likely to divorce than secular Americans.*

It seems that faith does matter in keeping our marriages intact, and it suggests that the stronger our faith the better the results. In other words, just saying we are Christians doesn’t necessarily help. I’m glad for the studies that are correcting the divorce rate myth about Christians. But what is even more important is that faith is the way of correcting the divorce rate!

*http://www.crosswalk.com/family/marriage/divorce-and-remarriage/the-christian-divorce-rate-myth.html

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Posted by Russell Holden

Course Corrections

March 16, 2012

Do you make mistakes? I do, and I don’t think I’m being presumptuous to say that you do also, since it is a part of the Bible’s teaching (see 1 John 1). The question, then, is how do we respond to correction. Take, for example, the case of Peter.

Peter has the mountain top experience of confessing to Jesus, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” Yet, when Jesus begins to teach about his death and resurrection, Peter is overconfident enough to rebuke Jesus. Jesus responds, “Get behind me Satan! You are a stumbling block to me, because you are not intent on the things of God but on human things.” (See Matthew 16:13-23.) The words had to have hurt. Peter finds himself as the embodiment of the Tempter attempting to thwart God’s plans. Peter makes a course correction and embraces the things of God.

Peter weeps bitterly after denying Jesus three times. He had made the audacious boast that if everyone else falls away, he would never fall away. Peter claimed he would die with Jesus and never deny him. So after breakfast following the resurrection, Jesus asks Peter three times, “Do you love me?” (See John 21:15-17.) The three questions correspond to the three denials. In fact, Peter is grieved by being asked the third time. Gone is the bravado. When Jesus asks, “Do you love me more than these,” Peter answers with a simpler, “Yes, Lord, you know that I love you.” With each affirmation of love, Jesus gives Peter a task: feed my lambs, shepherd my sheep, and feed by sheep. Peter makes a course correction and expresses his love for Jesus.

But despite Peter’s growth and display of great courage in the first persecution of the church, Peter is still capable of making a mistake. While in Antioch, Peter withdraws his table fellowship from Gentile Christians when certain men from James arrived on the scene (Galatians 2:11-14). The issue is table fellowship. Jews did not eat with Gentiles, and these Gentile Christians were not circumcised, so the traditions about table fellowship were wrongly upheld by some. What is striking about this is that Peter was the one who made the first Gentile convert and had to defend his actions in Jerusalem. Paul doesn’t give Peter’s response to correction, but I think given the rest of the New Testament, we can assume what it was. Peter makes a course correction and affirms the gospel as revealed by God.

Lead me not into temptation is, of course, our prayer. But when mistakes happen, may the destination to be with Christ be so important, that we humbly, quickly, and joyfully make the necessary course corrections.

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Posted by Russell Holden